The word “litigious” is more common today than it was in previous generations. It means “prone to litigation” or “prone to go to court.” I do recall seeing an article, I believe in Time magazine, entitled, “The Litigious Society.” It made the point that there has been a change in the way we do things in that when there was a dispute between people several generations ago, generally it was settled in an informal way by neighbors working it out together. Later on came the period in which people would tend to work things out by laws—that is, by having a local assembly, or a state, or even perhaps the congress pass a law in a certain area where conduct was ambiguous. But laws in their interpretation are under dispute, and so what has happened in our time is that disputes have increasingly found their way into the courts. And this article in Time magazine was pointing out that people today run to court often with a lawsuit at the drop of a hat.
Once, when I was flying back from Toronto, I happened to notice the Airlines magazine. I picked it up, and it had an article in it about lawyers. It said something to the effect that by the last decade of this century, there would be one million lawyers in the United States. And then after that statement there were a series of dots followed by the word “unfortunately.” Well as unfortunate as it is that so much litigation happens in the secular world, when this attitude passes into the Church of Jesus Christ it is a great shame. It is not just that we live in a litigious society; we associate with a litigious church. This is the third problem that Paul is dealing with in this very interesting and helpful letter to the church at Corinth.
The first of the problems that existed in that church was their pride in human wisdom. They thought they were so smart, so important, and so instructed in the affairs of this world. They were pleased that they were wise. They were pleased that they were noble. They were pleased that they were not like the common, ignorant folk. Paul grappled with that sin head-on, and challenged them with the great fact that God has set Himself against the wisdom of the world. God’s business in this world is to tear the world’s wisdom down because the world by that very wisdom crucified Jesus Christ. Instead of that kind of wisdom, Paul says that God uses the foolish things of the world—those who do not have reputations, those who are not important in the world’s eyes, those who lack magnificent educations. He uses those as the channel of His blessing. And if the Corinthians would do things in God’s way, they had to readjust their thinking at that point.
The second problem he dealt with was this question of the church’s immorality, which he gets to in chapter 5. Instead of repenting of this, instead of being ashamed that such a thing could happen in the church, the Christians at Corinth were proud about it. Why? Well although Paul does not give the reason, it is probably because they thought they were so liberal. They were proud of the fact that they were not narrow-minded. But of course in this case they were wrong in their thinking. Paul’s cure for such shameful behavior was church discipline. He said, “You’re very lax. It’s not that you’re so strong in your liberality. You’re actually very weak in your liberality. You’re not maintaining the discipline of the church.” His instructions are very clear. In unmistakable language he tells them that they must expel the wicked man in their midst. Such church discipline is meant to draw the sinner back, which in this particular case is exactly what happened according to what we learn from 2 Corinthians.